Wheeling Jesuit Says It’s Cooperating with Feds

The Intelligencer
March 1, 2012

http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/566584/Wheeling-Jesuit-Says-It-s-Cooperating-With-Feds.html?nav=515

WHEELING - Wheeling Jesuit University spokeswoman Michelle Rejonis on Wednesday said the university is cooperating with federal investigators who seized records from the offices of J. Davitt McAteer, the school's vice president for federally sponsored research programs.

The records were removed Feb. 15, but Rejonis said she didn't know which federal agency was involved.

McAteer, a former head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, did not return calls seeking comment. University President Richard Beyer's office referred all questions on the matter to Rejonis.

Records have been seized from the offices of J. Davitt McAteer, Wheeling Jesuit University’s vice president for federally sponsored research programs.

Wheeling Jesuit has many federally sponsored programs, including collaborations with NASA and a center that helps commercialize new technologies, Rejonis said, so it works with several agencies. Many of those agencies have an Office of Inspector General, an entity that investigates fraud, waste and abuse.

Chris Zumpetta, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld's office in Wheeling, also declined to identify the agency involved but acknowledged there is "an ongoing investigation."

Rejonis would not discuss the investigation further except to say it does not affect Pell Grants or other federal assistance to the school's 1,500 students.

McAteer, a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit, has been a vice president since 2005. He's also director of its National Technology Transfer Center and its Erma Ora Byrd Center for Education Technologies. McAteer also served for a time as interim president at WJU.

The NTTC does work on mine safety and health, missile defense, health technology and small business partnerships. The Center for Educational Technologies has housed the NASA-sponsored "Classroom of the Future" program since 1990.

McAteer has led independent investigations into three West Virginia mine disasters: the 2006 Sago Mine explosion that trapped and killed 12 men; the 2006 Alma No. 1 mine fire that killed two men; and the 2010 Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29.